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Cause: lost and found

In every party there are nasties
Tribal mirrors, every one
Pots and kettles in fine fettle
Bang their polarising drums

*~*~*

I feel a little odd. Detached from narratives but tethered by consciousness. Like everything is just next door.

There’s a mountain of injustice to level but I can’t bring myself to fully join in with any political organisation. I don’t feel as though I will fit into any of the groupthink box-rooms. I don’t think I want to, either. They come across as so stifling; so distorting. So small. And the minute you step into one, it looks as if you are expected to become the property of its ethos and objectified vessel of its mission.

And I just can’t pick one cause above another. They’re all connected and nearly all vital and devotion to any one part seems selfish; almost irresponsible. That sounds counter-intuitive, I suppose. Ungracious, even. After all, throughout human history there are people who devote their whole lives to a single focus. And there’s strength in numbers, right? And, anyway, you have to start somewhere, yes? But the grass is always drier and patchier on the other side of the fence and, if I sincerely believed that I might be able to save the nursery by rescuing a baby, which baby do I choose? Maybe I should admire those who want to and think that they can. Perhaps, deep down, I do.

As yet, though, I see no causal group to which I am enough attracted and in which I have sufficient confidence, to wear its badge. Albeit that I’m interested in most topics and quite captivated by many of their issues, I can’t reconcile the sentiments I share with those that make me recoil. I don’t want to be swallowed up by a tribe that will only reflect fragments of my values and whose ideas, approach and methods are, too often, not at all matched to mine. Neither can I bear the thought of being infected; weighed down and distracted by the trolls of ignorant misdirection and oversimplification. (Actually, I’d as likely be turned out on my ear for regular and persistent dissent. I think I’m one of those there’s always one people…) I can’t help it. It’s not that I’m not a team player. I know I am. Just I need to respect the team, be able to clearly see its integrity and properly understand and agree with its purpose and actions.

I don’t know how much this attitude is down to my own psyche or the damage of media spin and the extremely off-putting actions of the rabids in both the physical and etheric echo chambers who go, keenly, from impotent passion to explosive pettiness on the turn of a meme. Is my character flawed that I am so resistant to being pigeon-holed and herded; that I would rather journey separately than become moulded and shredded by a factional collective and its vicious opponents? How much of this is down to the wisdom of instinct – for instinct, it is – and how much is it a consequence of the country’s increasing polarisation by knee jerk outrage? Am I too full of nuance to commit to transitional fashions or a terribly flakey, thrice-denying Peter?

The world is in shadow. It is tempting to see the missionaries as pockets of Light’s hope but such movements are quickly made insular. They create cultish obstacles to sympathy and practical wisdom, ending up as distractions that inhibit rational debate and understanding, obscuring and delaying effective solutions. The suppressed very easily become self-righteous suppressors; those that fight polarisation in bubbles too readily create new-level binaries. The consciousness and perspective of the Public is in a fragile state; common emotion and reason are popularly out of sync. Every shift in consciousness is one tiptoe forward; two leaps back. What should be healthy, progressive friction is static in an airtight cage. That’s what I see.

I am irrevocably and willingly plugged in to the collective consciousness. I exist in solidarity with the highest and noblest of all human potential. I love my beautiful planet and all its teeming, wondrous life and mystery. I want to help to heal it; to heal us; to heal me. Is this better done by me lengthening the shadows next door or by concentrating on shortening my own? I feel pathetic in the face of the mountain. And yet, I think and feel that I do more good – and certainly less harm – by attending to the friction of inner light in my own house. Intuitively; experientially, I feel the more whole for it. That is use and cause, enough, both to me and to mine.